The organization and the educational machinery of music have now, in the opinion of those competent judges to whom the writer of these lines is indebted, reached a point beyond which further development is neither necessary nor desirable. Production and execution leave perhaps little to be wished for. Appreciation, however, of musical excellence is not universally proportionate to musical activity. Audiences more intelligently critical and better trained are apparently the chief _desiderata_, if composers and performers are to rise above mediocrity. Instruction in the art now spoken of has, of course, shared in the advantages incidental to the transformation of London from an insular into a cosmopolitan capital. As a result, the best teachers from all countries are available for the London learner. Nor in this respect does England to-day, as thirty years ago it did, compare disadvantageously with Leipsic, Paris, Berlin, Stuttgardt. There seems however reason to fear that, like Gwendolen Harleth in _Daniel Deronda_ before Klesmer, we fail in that important and indefinable quality, style. The best critics complain that, when a student has been through the regular course here, and has perhaps become a first rate technical musician, he seldom seems to get any further; he never, in other words, develops any individuality. To some extent this result follows the collective teaching of all academies. The area of level mediocrity is, however, it may be feared, larger here than in France or Germany. There is more of delicacy and daintiness in the French student; there is more of individual expansion and thoughtfulness in the German. Both are trained in academies. The quicker intuition and more intelligent appreciation of French and German audiences are in the opinion of unprejudiced critics attributed to this cause. Hence the expert, if consulted by an English student, probably would advise him to go abroad for a year or two when his technical course has been finished in England. Unfortunately the advice too often resembles that of a medical man who might prescribe a generous diet and a glass of port wine to an invalid labourer, earning less than £1 a week. In respect of education, cheapness and free scholarships seem to have been carried at least as far as is conducive to the real interest of learners in this country. A reform, favoured by many good judges, is to make payment for teaching universal with a few exceptions; then to give to students of promise an allowance sufficient to enable them to go abroad and complete their education. As it is, some risk is run of gratuitously training mediocrities, launching them on professional careers which can only land them in disappointment and poverty.